Convenors: Josette Combes (MES), Françoise Wautiez (Socioeco.org)

This project has been on-going for several years. The objective is to collect data that characterises all social and solidarity economy structures and initiatives in Europe.

A questionnaire was developed to gather all useful data to develop the panorama and contribute to establishing the specific characteristics of all new ways of working and organising economic and social relations in a world in transition.

A certain number of responses were collected, but it remains difficult to exploit the information, as they are not complete and there are also translation issues. The part dedicated to describing activities is incomplete or not filled in at all. An overview of the results will be presented using slides.

A working group session was held in Florence (Italy) from 4th-6th March 2016. It brought together French, Italian, Greek, Portuguese, Spanish, Catalan, British and Swiss members. The work focused on pooling the tools and approaches and reflecting on strategies to extend the work. The main conclusions concerning the needs and expectations of the networks were the following: a shared definition of SSE, more finely honed thanks to the network; a European calendar of events organised by members; feedback to the contributors on the Panorama results; definition of interoperability criteria to summarise the mapping; create an appropriate form for communicating the results; shared communication techniques, and a description of the network members and liaison platform.

The workshop plans to use these points to pose the following questions: how can the questionnaire be improved and better used? How can the different surveys be shared? What type of document would provide a more detailed description of the activities?